I'm posting some photos of the gift shop back in the day - the gift shop was housed in what we know as Bora Bora today. In this photo below you can see some of the before mentioned tikis in this thread with PRICE TAGS on them!!! You could actually take them home. This shot is as you enter the gift shop (Bora Bora) and some of those tikis still stand inside the same spot in Bora Bora today:

This is one of my personal favorites and one that I drool over all the time. On the shelves to the right you can see the highly sought after drum mug, tiki salt and pepper shakers, in the back many Aloha shirts and a mannequin dress in no doubt something I would wear and low and behold on the other wall shelves more of the tikis in this discussion with price tags and the awesome table lamps for sale as well. In the bottom right hang corner is a Moai ashtray - no doubt the one that is currently rotting in the gardens:

Get ready to drool - the Mai Kai once sold ALL of their glassware as well as the mugs. You'll see many of them pictured here on the shelves waiting to be taken home to make your own cocktails - among them the Rum Barrel, the Mai Kai stein mug (which I would love to find), the headhunter mug and the coffee grog. Also, one of the lamps I drool over:

Yeah, that makes more sense than our initial guess that the molds were made to restock any lost/deteriorated Tiki decor. Just like mugs, fresh Tikis for the shop shelf, Voila!

NOW someone has to find one of those original castings! It would be interesting to see how they treated them. It seems they did quite a thorough job with aging them to make them look authentic. For example, it looks like they put "dust" in the creases and folds of these statues.

And the question still remains: WHO carved the master carvings (from the book) that the molds were made from?

Interesting. That pedestal mug was for sale in the gift shop? (Lower right on the shelves.) I have only seen one of those anywhere. It is featured on December in Tiki Daze. How these things didn't survive, I do not know, but that mug and that barrel mug are rare as all get out. The drum survived better. I know of several in collections. I guess it just looked prettier and people hung onto it and the others went in the trash along the way. It does help you understand how they ever ended up in someone's home.

Maybe this will answer your question, bigbro. This is from Bob and LeRoy at Oceanic Arts:

Quote:

Most of the carvings shown in the Tiki Central threads are carved by Barney West. He also carved many large masks. While Barney's carvings were crude in looks, they had a lot of character just like Barney. We loved the old guy and had some good times with him.

Some of the figures shown are authentic primitive arts we imported from New Guinea and sold to Jack Thornton. They have mostly been repainted. We also carved hundreds over the years of the Candle Table Lamp Bases. They were finished by the Mai Kai. Under the direction of George Nakashima we carved many wood moldings and pieces for their various themed rooms.

I think some of the figures and pieces were bought by Jack during his travels. Also many figures were carved by Demitrio Chavez for Carter who sold them to the Mai Kai. OA introduced Demitrio to Carter as we did not have the funds for carvings in the early days.

Interestingly, Jack Thorton never mentioned making molds of the Tiki's.

So to sum it up----OA did not carve any large tiki's for the Mai Kai. Once we introduced Demetrio to Carter, Carter had some masks made from the New Guinea museum designs from the book Oceanic Art. When Carter moved to WestWood OA had many more patterns carved by Demetrio.

And for the 99.9% of TCers who don't know who or what "Carter" is (myself included until now), here's an elaboration from Bob:

Quote:

Robert H. Carter of Cargoes by Carter was perhaps the first importer of tropical decor and sold to Donn Beach and Victor Bergeron in the late 1940's. He was based in Whittier, CA and was a very small operation, selling Gift Ware as well as the basic tropical decor such as mattings, tapa cloths, and tikis's he had carved in Western Samoa.

LeRoy and I sold for him and carved 100's of Shields, Masks and Tiki Rail Posts for him to sell to restaurants. He later moved to Westwood, CA and we went full time expanding OA. He passed away during the late 1970's.

That is great info, Robert, thank you for inquiring. I have been meaning to go over to O.A. since I got back, but first I have to pluck all the material they lent me for from the Tiki Modern folders that Taschen returned to me!

Proves that there are chapters and persons (like Demitirios Chavez) in Tiki history that have yet to be uncovered!

Robert Carter apparently was the grandfather of mid-century Tiki art. He worked with Eli Hedley, and "fathered" Bob and Leroy. I know nothing else about him. Here are some ancient scrolls from the O.A. archive:

This feather stone head that now rests in my front yard looks like it possibly could be from this Tiki forge: